Now, when I saw and hear the promotion for this movie, I usually saw Tami and Remy. Remy was in the movie all of 20 seconds. What I thought would happen was that it would bounce back and forth between Mia torturing these people in the basement and Patricia trying everything to find her daughter. That’s not what Lifetime did. This became the Tami Roman movie, and I think on that front, Lifetime missed an opportunity there.
Here’s what I didn’t like. I hate when someone dies in a movie and it is never explained. Don’t show me a death and make it all dramatic and never come back to it. Nancy was a crucial character in this film. Spoiler, she dies, but we never know what happened to her. One day, she was fine, and literally the next day, she was dead. What happened? Tell me! I want to know! It’s not like we spend the entire movie getting to know her.
Here’s what else I didn’t like. Lifetime has a terrible habit of waiting until the literal last ten minutes of the movie for the real action to take place. This movie is an hour and a half or so and the last ten minutes is when they get busted. I was also annoyed we didn’t get to see more escape attempts. We say Nancy’s one attempt, which now that I think about it…Nancy should have known better. A cop who is paying for a prostitute is probably not the best person to ask for help.
Now, it seemed like they made a big deal about Cameron because she was Mia’s niece, but….it didn’t really matter in the long run. I guess it was supposed to make us feel like Mia was never a character we could see any good in because she did all this to strangers and her niece. But, this is bad either way. Also, it would make more sense if they were found due to the fact that Cameron’s mom was looking for her, but that’s not what happened so…we didn’t even need that whole beginning part of the movie. But movie has to movie.
What I did love in this film is Tami THEE Roman. Tami was phenomenal in this film. She was hard when she needed to be hard. Soft when she needed to lure someone in. You could see how calculating her character was and that is a feat in itself. AND it’s a Lifetime film. We don’t go into a Lifetime film, or Hallmark film for that matter, expecting a lot from anything. Why we accept the bare minimum from Lifetime, I don’t know, but Tami was exceptional. Her daughter Jazz was great. Didn’t care for her dude. Pastor was a great addition at the right time in the movie. I absolutely thought she was going to bring him in and he was going to help. Seemed too easy that he just went along with everything, but he was a con man anyway, so I guess.
Overall, this was a good way to spend an hour and a half, two hours with commercials but I DVR’d the movie, so no commercials for me. Lifetime has a slew of new original content coming in the next two or three months and I plan on watching all of them because they look great. What did you think? Do you enjoy Lifetime original movies? It should also be noted that this movie was sort of ripped from the headlines but not entirely. Also, Lifetime, do better with your fonts. You have money!
BLACK WATCH 